Extinction? Maybe?

April 10, 2008

To change up the normal routine and explore a new territory, I am going to focus on youth and high school athletes. Today I was at my internship at the North Haven Citizen and as normal I was helping with the layout of the Sports section. With the spring sports getting underway last week, the newspaper began doing its previews and had its first batch of scores for the spring teams. As I looked at some of the names in the box scores, I noticed that a number of students were on teams that had just finished up their winter seasons. All of this got me to thinking about the rare, high school “three-sport athlete.”

Back in the day (I use this for lack of a better term) the “three-sport athlete” was a thriving member of society in high schools around the country. This athlete would play America’s three most popular sports: football, basketball, and baseball. Not only would he play these sports, but he would excel in all of them equally. But nowadays, it is rare for kids in middle school to play three or more sports, as coaches and parents want them to have total focus on being good at one.

Personally, I believe this is the wrong way to go as Patrick Welsh, a contributing writer to USAToday.com would agree. Throughout my life, I played soccer and baseball in the fall, basketball and indoor soccer during the winter, and soccer and baseball again in the spring. Today, it was refreshing to see high schoolers that are participating in more than one sport, as I hope more athletes will do the same

O.k. So you know me with sports, but I actually got into this blog (into it enough to even comment on it =) ) I agree with Prof. So many kids in high school do as many sports as possible. My boyfriend Chris was starting varisty in high school, for not only football, but baseball and basketball as well. One thing that got me a little heated about your blog was that you kept writting ‘he.’ What about girls? I went to an all girls high school and so many of them played softball, basketball and hockey. So hey, we might not play football, but a lot of us still do the whole “three” thing!!!! Watch out for me Dan! haha